Determining Textual Evidence

1. Determining the genre, author’s purpose and audience.

A very important consideration in writing is an author’s purpose and audience. This will
have a bearing on the kind of writing style the writer will employ. It will also determine
the kinds of words the writer will use such as technical words, street words, legal terms
or religious words. The author’s purpose and audience will also significantly influence
the genre of the text. You can determine the genre, author’s purpose and audience
through a careful reading of the text. By carefully paying attention to the structure,
word use and tone of the writing and integrating this by what you know about written
texts you had been exposed to.

2. Pointing out the most significant idea.

The most significant idea in a text will differ from one reader to another. That is why
part of reacting to a text is pointing out what one considers to be the most significant
idea. It may not be the same as the main idea or the thesis sentence. Rather, what a
reader will consider to be the most significant idea will be dependent on the
circumstances surrounding the reader’s interaction with the text. It may be that the idea
is new to the reader or the reader has an experience or characteristics that makes a
particular part of the text more appealing to him or her than to others would. Because
of this, what a reader may consider to be the most significant idea at one time may
change after a subsequent interaction with the text.

3. Avoiding too much subjectivity in making an evaluation.

Making evaluative statements about a text requires that one must avoid being too
subjective or being too critical of the text. A comment that is too subjective is not
acceptable to educated readers. One way to avoid subjectivity is to adhere to common
and accepted standards or measures. These standards include moral standards
acceptable ways of reasoning and declarations made by reputable bodies such as the
United Nations. Another way is to recognize and guard against one’s bias toward the
author. For example, a scientist must guard against his bias toward a religious writer and
vice versa. A reader may develop bias toward a writer based on such differences as
religion, gender, ethnicity, economic status, age, educational level, political affiliation
and even time period. One important way to avoid bias is to focus only on the ideas
expressed in the txt and not on the person of the author.
4. Evaluating the strength of an author’s arguments

In evaluating the author’s claims or conclusions you need to evaluate if the author’s
arguments are strong enough to support them. One important consideration is whether
or not the author’s premises ( the given basis or foundation) are actually reasonable. A
strong argument stems from premises in order to establish their reasonability.
Sometimes the author does not explicitly state his or his premises. They are thus
unstated assumptions and you need to make use of skills similar to inferencing in order
to discover and take note of them.

One important way to evaluate the strength of the arguments is to trace the logical step
by step approach of the author in building his or her case. It is possible for an author to
give a perfectly reasonable or correct idea only to follow it with a faulty idea or an idea
that does not logically result from the first one. This second idea is called non sequitur
to say that a person can get thin by just breathing oxygen.

5. Evaluating the wording of the author’s claims

The way an author states his or her claims has a strong bearing on how acceptable the
claims are. An author who uses broad, generalizing words will require more substantive
evidence that is true for all cases. Such an author is described to be painting using broad
strokes of the brush. On the other hand, an author who qualifies his or her claims and
emphasizes the conditions that make the claims as much as an author making
generalizing claims would. An author who avoids making broad claims will also mention
exceptions to any generalization he or she makes.

6. Differentiating arguments based on evidence vs arguments based on rhetoric.

Readers can be convinced using different ways. Authors who back up their claims using
reliable facts, statistics or logical reasoning use arguments that are based on evidence.
In contrast, some authors use emotional words and other rhetoric devices. Rhetorical
devices are examples of non logical means by persuading readers to accept idea.